Issue Number 1 of Chapel Hill Magazine showed up in the mailbox uninvited but not unappreciated today.

I was immediately confused. The cover is not of Chapel Hill but of Carrboro (“Where it is always 1 degree cooler” says Ron Stutz who is profiled in the magazine). Those who have lived here and those who have only heard “It’s Carrboro” will identify the Weave and the hula hoopers right away.
Flipping to the cover article “15 Ways to Love Your Summer” or “A Summer Place: It’s hot, but it’s cool” — the article is not sure of its own title — the confusion continues. Of the 15 wonders, only 5 and a half are in Chapel Hill. The rest are in Carrboro and in Hillsborough. All of the special days are shared by those two towns — no special summer days are in Chapel Hill it seems.

No wonder people are confused about where they live if even the town magazine isn’t sure what is what. It is possible to have a Chapel Hill mailing address, have kids in Chapel Hill High School, and to live not in Chapel Hill or in Carrboro but in the planning area for Carrboro (meaning you will be annexed by Carrboro one day but for the moment you pay no Chapel Hill or Carrboro taxes).

The Magazine is published in Chapel Hill. Its offices are on Market St in Southern Village where Weaver Street Market, a Carrboro company, has an outpost which we call Market Street Weaver. When Carrboro High opens in 2007, the kids in Southern Village will go there. The Southern Village homeowners are paying Chapel Hill taxes. The tower for WCOM, Carrboro’s community radio station, is there not far from the Magazine’s offices. In fact, you get better reception in Southern Village than in parts of Carrboro. Market Street is just about as close to Carrboro Town Hall (3.4 mi or about 6 mins) as it is to Chapel Hill Town Hall (3.1 mi or about 6 mins) according to Google Maps.

Luckily for the Magazine, confusing Hillsborough is much more difficult.

Nice that the magazine should cover the towns and the north of the county to the south, but the magazine should recognize the unique identities of the places. Carrboro should not be represented as Chapel Hill. A look at the WiFi and the It’s Carrboro video should give you a clue as to the differences that make both places great.